All relevant issues concerning MiFID II were discussed, also in comparison to FIDLEG, the Swiss equivalent. There was a broad agreement that most important aspects of the new regulation are known to the market participants. But it has been very challenging to implement all the specifications on time.

Especially operational aspects of the regulations are hardly practicable. The implementation in each EU country differs from each other which even increases the regulatory demands. Furthermore, there are still great uncertainties about the definition of “negative target markets”. Another difficulty derives from the amount of data that has dramatically risen. Especially the quality of data definitely has to be improved. Finally, there is a substantial scope for improving the disclosure of costs and fees (ex-ante and ex-post), since they often have to be estimated due to a lack of information.

However, the introduction of the first PRIIPS KIDs, which are only obligatory for insurance products until 31.12.2019, seems to work smoothly.

Several Swiss Banks compared MiFID II and FIDLEG. On the basis of the current draft, FIDLEG lags behind the regulatory standards of MiFID II in all core aspects. This might lead to a differentiated realization of the Swiss finance industry depending on the relevance of MiFID II for their business.

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25.04.2018

Jérôme Neri gives training on Swiss Representation on 26th of April 2018